she held her breath, and in her head, counted seconds. She pretended that for each second she didn’t breathe, God would grant her another day

Attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun.

hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.

A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.

Nothing good came free. Even love. You paid for all things. And if you were poor, suffering was your currency.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts.

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.

Quiet is peace. Tranquility. Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life. Silence is pushing the off button. Shutting it down. All of it.

We must be more and more to each other, my dear wife.' -Charles Darwin to wife Emma upon loss of daughter Annie

Through my optimism I naturally prefer and capture the beauty in life.

I wake up with new dreams every day...more I can do to channel that into things that I love to create is healthier for me and probably for everybody around me.

I feel guilty because I want to act more than I want to write songs. I'm a person who likes to transition; I like to grow.

Just 8% of the $409bn spent on fossil-fuel subsidies in 2010 went to the poorest 20% of the population.

If your desire is a 10 but your self-esteem is a 5, you'll never perform at the level of a 10. You'll perform as a 5 or lower. People are ever able to outperform their self-image.

Being the boss of your own career, you get used to having veto power and getting what you want, or as close to what you want as you have mapped out.

Death is the black backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all.

There's a kind of mystery to our being and from my point of view, regarding my own parents and their parents, I'd as soon let it lie than find out who my mother's father was.